Two months into New South Wales’s Delta outbreak, the premier has toughened and extended greater Sydney’s lockdown and introduced a curfew in the western suburbs, declaring “it is time for all of us to bunker down and take this as seriously as we can”.
NSW health authorities reported 644 local Covid cases and four deaths on Friday. Gladys Berejiklian said two factors were behind a raft of new restrictions, including a state-wide mask mandate and expanded police powers – surging case numbers and compliance breaches.
West and south-west Sydney continued to host the “vast majority” of infections but an illegal party in beachside Maroubra – in the city’s east – was singled out for generating 11 cases.
There were also 27 new infections in western NSW and four additional cases overnight in Wilcannia and two in Bourke. There had now been 195 cases in the region.
Just 95 of the total cases announced on Friday were isolating for all or part of their infectious period. As many as 547 cases were infectious in the community.
Berejiklian said the tougher restrictions, including the outdoor mask mandate which applies at all times except when exercising, were the “final measures” that could help contain the state’s Delta outbreak. The premier said they were formulated by police and health experts and delivered on Thursday night.
Greater Sydney’s lockdown had been extended by a month until the end of September. Certain rules, including the curfew and a one-hour limit for daily exercise, only apply to the 12 local government areas of concern in west and south-west Sydney.
All of the new rules announced on Friday start on Monday.
Berejiklian said LGAs that show lower Covid transmissions could be removed from the “areas of concern” list while areas that show growing transmission could be added.
There were currently 470 people in NSW hospitals with Covid, with 80 in intensive care and 27 requiring ventilation. Of those in ICU, none were fully vaccinated.
Most of NSW’s cases continued to be in younger age brackets. Of Friday’s 644 cases, 80 were aged under 10, 107 were between 10 and 19, 162 were in their 20s, 118 were in their 30s and 77 were in their 40s.
Of the four new deaths recorded, none were fully vaccinated. Two women in their 80s died in hospital. A man in his 80s who contracted Covid while in Nepean hospital died and a man in his 70s who contracted Covid in the oncology ward at St George hospital also died.
Police say breaches by ‘younger men’ behind new rules
Both Berejiklian and the state’s chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, acknowledged the medical evidence behind curfews was “mixed” but said police requested the measure to help with compliance.
“The evidence to a lot of these things is mixed,” Berejiklian said. “But I do not want us to have to look back and say we did not try, we do not put everything into it. We have nothing left on the field.”
The police commissioner, Mick Fuller, said he had hoped a police crackdown that began on Monday would have improved compliance but 3,500 fines had been issued this week for breaches.
Sign up to receive the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
Fuller said specifically “younger men” across the 12 Sydney LGAs of concern had proved “very difficult to manage”.
“In hindsight, do I wish that I raised curfews on day one? Yeah probably, but you probably would have laughed me out,” Fuller told reporters.
Chant said “the evidence around curfews is mixed but I also think that it sends a significant signal about the crisis we are facing”.
She dodged questions regarding whether she had recommended any of the new restrictions prior to Thursday. “What it is important to focus on is the fact that the premier, at all points, has followed … has asked us to provide the best advice, and I am totally committed to these additional measures,” she said.
Quick Guide
How to get the latest news from Guardian Australia
Show
Chant also denied she had ever offered to resign – pouring cold water on speculation she had done so in protest to her recommendations not being adopted by the government.
Due to pressure on testing capacity, the government had abandoned the 72-hour regular surveillance testing for workers from Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland and Fairfield travelling outside of their LGAs for work.
Instead, businesses would now have to implement rapid antigen testing on their worksites, or workers would have to have their first vaccine dose by 30 August.
Announcement next week on schools and eased restrictions
Despite a third straight day of more than 600 new cases, Berejiklian said she would outline what term three and four would look like for school students and parents next week.
Parents were reminded not to send their children to childcare centres unless necessary, with Covid exposures recorded at 30 facilities in Sydney over three days this week. They were mostly in the west and south-west.
Berejiklian reiterated she would announce some freedoms that fully vaccinated residents could enjoy once the state administers 6m vaccine doses. As of Friday it had administered 5.6m jabs.
Chant said she would provide Berejiklian a list of “the most very basic and minimal changes” to restrictions that vaccinated residents could benefit from. She also defended talk of freedoms on a day when tougher restrictions were being introduced.
“I do not think there is a disconnect, I think this is about saying that we have to get vaccinated,” she said.
Fuller, when asked if he was comfortable with the idea of freedoms being introduced in the midst of tougher restrictions he had requested, said: “Absolutely, I want us out of lockdown.”
On Thursday, Berejiklian said the freedoms in line with vaccination targets were “exciting things to look forward to”.
Fuller said police would launch a “highly visible and agile” police response in anticipation of anti-lockdown protests planned for Saturday.
WA declares NSW an ‘extreme risk’
The Western Australian government, meanwhile, said it would declare NSW an “extreme risk” under its border control regime from Thursday 26 August and advised locals to return home by then.
NSW meets the criteria for the state’s new “extreme risk” classification – having had more than 500 cases on a rolling average of between five and 14 days.
There will be no compassionate exemptions granted and approval to enter WA will be restricted to government officials, members of parliament, and those approved by the state emergency coordinator or chief health officer.
The few residents allowed to return will be forced into mandatory hotel quarantine for 14 days. They will have had to return a negative test within 72 hours of travelling to WA and have had at least one dose of a vaccine.
“I understand this may be an anxious time for some,” the WA premier, Mark McGowan, said. “[But] the risk in NSW is too big and we need to take new steps to protect Western Australia to keep our state safe.”
